Thursday, February 10, 2011

First Card Book Feature

It is time for a FIRST Wild Card Tour book review! If you wish to join the FIRST blog alliance, just click the button. We are a group of reviewers who tour Christian books. A Wild Card post includes a brief bio of the author and a full chapter from each book toured. The reason it is called a FIRST Wild Card Tour is that you never know if the book will be fiction, non~fiction, for young, or for old...or for somewhere in between! Enjoy your free peek into the book!

Perry Stone directs one of America’s fastest growing ministries - Voice of Evangelism. From its 70,000 square foot International Ministry Center, Voice of Evangelism is striving to reach the world with the gospel of Christ through revivals, television, audio/video media, printed material, and missionary sponsorship. Perry has authored over forty books and booklets; produced over one hundred videos and DVDs, and hundreds of audio teaching albums series. Perry publishes The Voice of Evangelism magazine. Manna-Fest with Perry Stone, a weekly television program, can be seen nationally and internationally via cable and satellite systems around the world.

Do the following questions express what you have felt—or asked—in the past?Does a weeping willow describe your family tree? Do you secretly wish you had been born to a different family? Did you pick up some bad DNA from someone in your lineage? Would you like to put on a new set of genes and make a new you? Is there a warfare going on that you won’t talk about? What are the keys to a happy home and marriage?

If so, keep reading! There are two important ways for you to alter your present personal situations and prepare for a great emotional and spiritual future—by purging your house and pruning your family tree. Purging your house involves removing spiritual, emotional, and mental hindrances from three houses: spiritual, physical, and emotional. The author teaches readers the 3-step process of removing the leprosy (laying aside the weights or sins), rebuilding a fresh foundation (replacing old thoughts with new thoughts), and restoring the house (new friends, relations, directions). Pruning your family tree involves a process called redemptive alteration, which positively impacts your future when the Word of God defeats the sin habits and overcomes the carnal nature through regeneration. The author reveals the dangers that can harm or destroy our family are the same dangers that destroy nature’s trees—storms that place pressure on the branches, drought the destroys the leaves, cold weather that destroys the fruit, and floods that uproot the entire tree. He teaches us how to evict the enemy by quoting Scripture, experiencing the anointing, rebuking the devil, and having strong faith.

Then they brought him to Him. And when he saw Him, immediately the spirit convulsed him, and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth. So He asked his father, “How long has this been happening to him?” And he said, “From childhood. And often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him. But if You can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.” Jesus said to him, “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”

| Mark 9:20–23 |

Remember The Waltons? It was a popular weekly television series when I was a teenager. The setting was in the mountains of Virginia in the 1930s. A very large family with many children lived in one house, farming the land, eating large meals each night, and working hard for their father’s small lumber business. There was a day when this show typified real-life America, back in the days when Dad worked, Mom raised the kids, and the children were well disciplined, respected their elders, and worked hard from a very early age on the farm. My own father had eleven siblings—two who died young and seven who still survive. I’ve always teased Dad that they didn’t have a large family; they had a TRIBE!

Things have changed. Mom and Dad both work to make ends meet; the ildren are placed in day care and school during the week; are entertained with television, movies, and the Internet; and family members travel on separate paths, preventing quality family time. Then there is the ever-present problem of teen rebellion that moves through the home just like the spreading leprosy in the ancient homes in Israel.

If a family consists of two children, it is likely that one is compliant and the other is defiant—or one is cooperative and the other rather inoperative. One child can be disciplined by a mere look and respond by bowing his or her head and walking away with tears beginning to flow from his or her eyes. However, the other immediately initiates a discussion that leads to a debate and ends in an argument. Most parents with numerous children understand the oddity that often one child tends to encounter more struggles, to battle more addictions, or to rebel.

As parents, we deal with many forms of satanic attacks during our lifetimes. Most can be overcome through wise decisions and prayer. However, rebellious children bring continual, never-ending stress and concern to loving parents. We must not only pray for rebellious children to experience the Lord, but we must also pray for God to protect those children from themselves or from the danger of their own foolish decisions.

Have you ever wondered why one child is often the target of the adversary?

Spirits attacking Children

On one occasion during Christ’s ministry, He brought deliverance to an epileptic boy whom the spirits had been physically attacking since early childhood (Mark 9:21). On another occasion, he freed a woman’s young daughter who had been possessed by an evil spirit (Matt. 15:22). These two incidents indicate that certain types of spirits will attempt to invade the lives of children at a very early age.

Throughout history, the adversary has set his focus on infants and children, especially during major prophetic seasons when God was raising up a deliverer for His people or for His nation. The pharaoh of Egypt assigned the Egyptian midwives, and later, all the Egyptian people, to cast every newborn Hebrew son into the Nile River (Exod. 1:16, 22). This decree of death on the sons forced the mother of Moses to hide the infant in a small handmade ark in the Nile River. Centuries later, Herod heard that a king of the Jews had been born in Bethlehem. Out of fear, he commanded Roman soldiers to slay all infants under two years of age (Matt. 2:16). Through God’s protection, both Moses and Jesus escaped from these decrees of death. As grown men, Moses led the Hebrew nation out of Egypt, and Jesus brought the possibility of redemption to the world.

America’s children have been faced with their own decree of death since abortion was legalized in 1973. The enemy has blinded the eyes of doctors, politicians, and yes, even expectant mothers who participate in the premature death of the unborn. Contained in the Scriptures’ End Time prophecies is a major prophetic promise directed at youth— the sons and daughters—that will take place prior to the return of the Messiah. It is found in both the Old and New Testaments.

And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God,

That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh;

Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

Your young men shall see visions,

Your old men shall dream dreams.

And on My menservants and on My maidservants

I will pour out My Spirit in those days;

And they shall prophesy.

Acts 2:17–18; see also Joel 2:28–29

A unique outpouring of the Holy Spirit is promised to the youth prior to the return of Christ! This outpouring will be initiated by the sons and daughters. This younger generation will also witness an increase of spiritual visions and dreams, revealing the plans of God and exposing the strategies of the adversary. With such a dynamic promise, is it any wonder that the youth of our time are experiencing the most subtle and sly attacks of the adversary?

By hindering young people’s relationship with God, the enemy blocks their ears from hearing God’s Word. By binding them with addictions to drugs or alcohol, he prevents them from feeling the peaceful and joyful presence of the Holy Spirit. By keeping them in rebellion, demonic forces prevent them from experiencing the love their parents have for them. Satan is conducting a mass bondage program to defeat the next generation because he does not know who may be the next deliverer—the next Moses, Joshua, Daniel, Deborah, Rachel, Rebekah—or the next great leader to bring the nation out of its lukewarm, spiritual lethargy.

Satan—Getting inside the House

Adults who are struggling today were children only yesterday. Many who battle addictions and bondages first encountered the snares of the enemy as children. Many women who today are engaged in prostitution were raped or molested as children or teens. Pornographic addictions that breed sexual abuse and perversion usually begin at preteen or in the early teen years. Many of the men and women in prison are there for using or selling illegal drugs. Many began their addictions in their teenage years, never knowing where their addictions would eventually lead. Many male homosexuals began experimenting with homosexual acts at a very early age. Some were actually molested as children by older men, and others entered into the lifestyle in their teen years.

The enemy selects his victims when they are but children. The enemy is fully aware of the importance of early teaching, and he plans strategies against our seed when they are still young children. At an early age children are very emotionally sensitive and mentally impressionable. This is why we are instructed: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it” (Prov. 22:6). The seeds of the gospel must be planted into the tender soil of the hearts of children before time, circumstances, and pressures from the world form a callus on their hearts.

Holes in the Soul

I once heard a great pastor from Fayetteville, North Carolina, teach a message at a conference that explained how Satan attempts to choose his future victims while they are very young. He explained how cruel words, sexual abuse, anger, and other physical and emotional weapons create a hole in the emotions of a person. As the neglect, abuse, and sexual sins continue, more holes are punched in the emotions, and the previous holes become bigger and bigger. Eventually a person feels so unclean inside, so unworthy and rejected, that he or she seeks affirmation through prostitution, a gay lifestyle, or even through drugs. That person believes, wrongfully so, that drugs are needed to dull his or her emotions and thus feels better when he or she is high. The problem is this: when that person comes down from a false high, the holes in the soul are still there. Thus addiction becomes his or her companion, and the drug becomes the monkey on the back that cannot be defeated.

Soon these hurting individuals become attracted to other individuals who are experiencing the same form of pain. They team up with other wounded people who are drinking alcohol, taking illegal drugs, or are sexually active in an illicit manner. They get drunk or high, and then they give themselves over to another person, thinking that it will fill the void. When the party is over and the sun rises in the morning, the friends are gone, and they awake with the same holes in their hearts.

Some go as far as marrying someone just like themselves—“because he or she understands me.” Other young girls form a connection with the first boy who gives her attention or who masquerades love for sexual favors. Soon she is pregnant, and the boy has gone AWOL. A hole of rejection is created. The problem is compounded because two people with holes in their emotions can never make each other whole or complete.

The holes in our souls must be sealed off before wholeness can occur. The more holes in our souls, the more prayer and seeking God it takes to seal up the leaky emotions. The good news is that repenting of our sins and placing our faith in Christ bring not only deliverance from our bondages but also wholeness to our inner soul!

The Atoning Work of Christ

In Scripture, the word atonement is used eighty times, and it means “to appease, dismiss, or reconcile.” In the atoning work of Christ, there is a threefold atoning work:

1 . The work of Christ brings salvation to man through His blood (1 Pet. 1:18–19).

2 . The work of Christ brings healing through His stripes (Isa. 53:5; 1 Pet. 2:24).

3 . The work of Christ brings emotional healing through the act of Christ carrying your grief and sorrows (Isa. 53:4).

2 . The promise of physical healing: “By His stripes we are healed” (v. 5).

3 . The hope of emotional healing: “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows. . . . The chastisement for our peace was upon Him” (vv. 4–5).

Grief and sorrow are the result of painful events that occur in our lives. Death brings grief, and loss brings sorrow. However, the heavenly Father placed upon Christ our grief, pains, and sorrows.

We must come to the point where we understand this and by faith transfer our grief, sorrow, and rejection to the heavenly High Priest, who is touched with the feeling of our weaknesses.

Four Things to Do

I once heard a pastor from North Carolina explain the four things a person must do to bring deliverance and release to his or her spirit.

1. Face it. Do not deny your feelings, and don’t blame others for your negative emotions. Face it as a man or woman who loves God. You will never change what you permit and never face what you deny.

1 Trace it. After you face it, then you must trace it. Get to the root of your conflict. Was it pride on your part? Did you reject godly advice? Was it the enemy attempting to create a rift? Did you misunderstand someone’s comment? Realize what the root was, not just the surface circumstance.

2 Erase it. By asking forgiveness—at times you may even write a letter or face a person directly to ask forgiveness— you are, in reality, erasing the offense. God will blot it from any record in heaven and will help to cleanse it out of your spirit. The enemy may attempt to bring back a memory for a season, but the Holy Spirit will remind you that you need not remember a sin that God has forgotten!

3 Replace it. Old images can be replaced with new pictures. Make fresh memories. Build new relationships. Get on with your life as you leave behind your past.

Thousands of men and women have followed this simple and yet powerful pattern and have experienced freedom and deliverance through faith in Christ. You may have been marked as a target for the adversary from the time you were a child or a teenager. However, you were also marked for a redemptive covenant that will redeem you out of the prison house of the enemy! Change your outlook from a victim mentality to a victory mentality when you enter a covenant of salvation and freedom through Christ! The prison doors have been opened, but you must walk through the doors.